Sunday, January 06, 2013

It's the big one, Weezy!

"Well, there's your problem..."

The ground is hard and gravity pulls you there with a relentless, gentle tug so seductive that sometimes you just give in and go with it. This crash was no seductive dance, though. This was sudden violence like a mosh pit gone awry. Speeding along. Flying through the air. Blackness. Impact. That sudden inhalation that lets you know you are alive. Sudden realization that you can't fully inhale or exhale. Pain receptors firing off all around the impact zone like the flashing lights on a control console that lets the Captain know that there are multiple serious things wrong with the ship.

But there were good moments, too. People rushing to help. The realization that you aren't dying. Being able to joke around with the EMT's that are working on you in a kind of "Aw-shucks, you don't really need to put me on a backboard, do you?" kind of way. And then everyone you know at the race coming to help you out, find your kid, get your stuff, drive your car back home, sit with you in the ER and ultimately, drag your broken body home.

The good news has come that the initial idea that I would be off of the bike for 4 months has fallen by the wayside in favor of a much shorter recovery period. The broken ribs are healing fast, the punctured lung is totally resolved and I only need to have surgery to remove the floating bit of collarbone that I broke off. Today I went for a road ride; three weeks to the day of the accident.

With surgery in a week and a half, I'm looking forward to putting this crash and the entire season of crashes behind me. I'm forgoing any and all racing or events that involve pinning a number to myself or affixing a number to my bike in any way for the entirety of 2013. I'm gonna get all of the bad mojo, juju, kharma, dharma and anything else that I must have accumulated and let it works it way out of me. Instead of racing, I plan to volunteer at the events that I have participated in as a racer and putting in time on our nascent trail building effort at the Zacks Fork trail that we have been raising funds for building.

I hope to see all of you out on the road, on the trail and maybe at a few special events that we'll be putting together at the shop this year. And always remember: Your face is not a good brake pad. I know. I've tried to brake with mine...